Rey's Victory
by caballlah
Summary: Rey learns the first of many lessons from her new teacher.
1. Chapter 1

He held out his hand to her and the feeling solidified, the feeling of home, centeredness, belonging. _Luke Skywalker._ The Jedi Master, the Hero of the Republic. She almost expected the lightsaber to fly out of her hand and go to him, they belonged together, it was so right, but of course he would never be so rude. He'd come to take it from her with a thanks, a congratulations, and he'd tell her what she already knew. That this was where she belonged. That this was the last puzzle piece of her family.

She took a halting step forward—her legs felt like they were a million miles long now—but the distance between them didn't close. Instead, it grew. Like the planet had decided she would not be allowed to draw so near to him and was putting up more of itself in between.

She took another step, and another, but in some blasphemous defiance of physics, the distance between them just kept _growing._ She stopped, but there was no undoing this bizarre curse, no halting it. He was pulled into the horizon, dwindling away from her—Rey wanted to scream, summon him back with everything the Force would give her.

No, it was her. She was being yanked backwards, sucked away—off the ground, off the planet, through space and time as her vision elongated, her senses dulled, she was slogging through some deep sleep into wakefulness, her body creaking and shuddering as she returned to it.

Kylo Ren stood over her. She was bound securely, her clothes still the unwashed fabrics she had been captured in, Starkiller Base all around her, imposing its impossibility on her.

"No!" she said it before fully taking a breath, before she tried her restraints or tried to think of how she could've been recaptured. "This isn't right, I'm not here, I escaped!"

"Did you now?" Kylo Ren said, voice brimming over with impressed sarcasm. His maskless face bore no scar, not a single bead of the sweat he'd shed as she'd fought him off. He was as composed, as cool, as collected as anyone she'd ever dealt with, paying her pennies on the credit because they had all the power.

He took a few stretching steps toward the wall, rotating his right arm—the hand he'd used to try to… what had he been trying to do? What had he _done?_

Finally working the kink out of it, he stopped at a wall-mounted refreshment station, pressing a single button and being rewarded with a small cup of water. As if he didn't realize how incongruous the sight of him was, he picked it up, took a testing sip, then gulped down the rest and refilled it.

 _Had he taken his helmet off just to get a drink?_

"I used the Force!" Rey argued. She had heard of Jedi having visions, nightmarish hallucinations—that had to be what this was. She was still with Luke Skywalker, he was showing her something, putting her through some test. She wouldn't fail! She knew what was real! "I used a mind trick on the guard! I escaped!"

"With what training?" Kylo asked, now examining his water as if there might be something in it. Old Imperial water filtration technology—not wholly efficient. Even on a station like this, it was the kind of small thing that might be overlooked, tech recycled instead of newly created. The mundane reality of it hit Rey like a punch in the gut. "I've received the same spam on my HoloNet account—'learn the ways of the Force, move objects with your mind, see through women's dresses''—it really doesn't work like that."

"No, I did it, it happened!"

"Yes, yes—and then you picked up a lightsaber and defeated me in combat while your new friends destroyed this place. Pardon." Kylo stopped to drink. "Thirsty work. Would you like some?"

" _I did!"_ Rey insisted, gritting her teeth. "It _happened!"_

Kylo pursed his lips, musing. "I'll give you this, you certainly have a healthy ego. Tell me—before all that, did I try to use the Dark Side on you? Reach into your mind?"

"I resisted you," Rey said proudly. "You couldn't overcome my will."

"Of course I couldn't," Kylo sounded almost paternally amused—an adult indulging a child in some hilarious fantasy. "Not a trained mind like yours. Would you like that drink now? I'd hate for you to have to use a…" A smile seemed to infect his face, slowly twisting his features into dark glee. "Jedi mind trick to get some water."

Rey could feel the realization rising in her, the facts, the truth, but she fought them as hard as she could. It was a trick. It had to be. She was on the ocean, she was on the island, she was with Luke, he would protect her, she just had to have faith, she just had to push this freakish reality away from herself as hard as she—

Kylo threw the water in her face, bracingly cold, a chill she had never known on Jakku. She was left sputtering, gasping, her nerves trying to process this new, astonishing sensation.

"Well, _you_ weren't going to drink it," Kylo said, horribly amused with himself.

The chill that ran down Rey's spine, stealing her breath, had nothing to do with the physical cold that pervaded her body, coming through the hardened metal, the ice of this frigid world, as real as she was.

"It was all a mind game," she said. Her voice sounded viciously _dull,_ cutting into her own ears. She had never heard herself so defeated. "You made me see those things—"

"I can't take all the credit. You have a very active imagination." Crushing the water cup in his hands, Kylo brought it to the garbage chute, chucking it with mocking sadness down to the nearest trash compactor. "And you had the coordinates to my wayward mentor. To think—if you hadn't bought into such a ridiculous fantasy, I wouldn't be able to pay him a visit. But I guess it's true what they say: Flattery will get you everywhere."

Rey let out a shaky breath. The water dripping off her had left a chill deep in her breast, and she was trembling with it: with rage, with denial, with a desperate wish to erase this nightmare and get back the dream that had been cruelly snatched away from her. She could see now how someone would join the Dark Side. If it had called to her, she would've taken it up gladly. Anything to wipe the smug smirk from Kylo Ren's face.

"What are you going to do to me?" she challenged him. It was a stupid question—she knew he meant to execute her. But she would at least have him look her in the eye and say it, not allow herself to pass through fearful moment after fearful moment, fed and caged like some animal, before finally being marched to some airlock or lined up before a squad of Stormtroopers…

"Are you sure you want to know?" Kylo Ren asked, _teasing,_ before he waved off his own question with a curt gesture. "I think I'll keep you. As I said, you have an active imagination—a healthy ego—it may be you even have some small talent with the Force. Yes… yes, you're a very interesting specimen all around."

When he put his mask back on, it covered up a sickly smile.

"You should kill me now," Rey told him. "Because I will find a way to get free and I _will_ kill you."

Behind his mask, Kylo seemed so oddly implacable—unable to be read, his body language still and unknowable. Then, in a flash, he drew his lightsaber, its ignition not a _snap-hiss,_ but an ill sound, a phlegmatic explosion of energy that only reluctantly solidified into a true plasma blade. Almost immediately after that, the vents on the hilt slammed open and a coruscating discharge flared out on either side with a horrible _hiss_ like some feral rodent.

With a smooth pivot, Kylo delivered the tip to her throat, the energy it held buzzing and dancing about with only the barest regard for coherence—she thought it might break loose at any moment, erupt like a faulty power coupling going off. When the flickering energy drew closer to her bare skin, she cried out, thinking he was thrusting it forward, taking her life with one powerful lunge through her larynx, into her airway, her spine. One tiny motion of his wrist—that was all it would take.

"Not so cocky when the danger is real, are you?" Kylo deactivated the lightsaber, casually returning it to his belt as his mask loomed over her like some moon in the night sky. Distant, cryptic, but with a decided sense of tangibility. She could feel his gaze on her—on her pitched breathing, on her clothes plastered to her skin by the water. She couldn't imagine even the thoughts inside her head were safe from whatever dark concentration that mask contained. "Very interesting indeed."

He jerked his outstretched palm at her and Rey felt a blistering heat—heat but no pain. She thought for a second that he'd burnt her. She knew what a third-degree burn could do to a scavenger, burn right through the nerves before you could feel any pain, you died not knowing what was wrong. But then he lowered his hand and she looked herself over; nothing had happened. But the heat had drawn away the moisture from her, leaving a bone-deep warmth that was actually preferable to the slight chill she had felt before. For whatever reason, he had spared her any further discomfort.

"I'll have someone by later to bathe you and dress you in new clothes," Kylo said, his voice husky and threatening through the mask, even as his cadence was the same conversational tone as before. "I'm sure you'd find me doing it… distasteful."

 _Kill you,_ Rey thought as loud as she could. Either he could hear her thoughts or he couldn't; she wasn't sure if this was some sort of defiance or if she was surrendering the spoken word to him and his threats of violence. Either way, she held onto the thought, and it let itself be gripped far more easily than the dream of Luke Skywalker on his distant world. _I will kill you, I will, I will._

"Rey," Kylo said, with a slight incline of his head that might almost have been a bow. He turned on his heel and took a satisfied stroll to the door. "Such a pretty name…"


	2. Chapter 2

Rey rubbed her wrists as soon as she was released, not knowing when she would be bound again—she needed to keep her blood circulating, her muscles limber, any moment could be an escape attempt.

The man who'd retrieved her was dressed in a Naval Trooper's uniform, but he wore it uncomfortably and his skin was pale, sweaty, like Finn's had been. The snap closures on his tunic were partially undone, exposing his Adam's apple, and she could see the beginnings of bandages adhering to his torso. For once, the mystery didn't interest her though. Just the blaster pistol he carried. He gestured with it to the door, the rest of his body immobile.

"Move."

Rey did. She forced herself to relax. Didn't want to tense up, give any indication she would flee. She wanted her captor nice and comfy with her. So that when she got the slightest chance, he'd have no idea how her boot had ended up in his groin or where she'd disappeared to after that.

The Stormtrooper—that was what he had to be, though she had no idea what he was doing out of uniform—marched her through what seemed like kilometers of corridors, all in the First Order's muted blacks, grays, and whites. A few non-coms and Stormtroopers and Navel-types bustled by, but no pleasantries were exchanged, no looks traded, not a word spoken. She never felt the tension in her captor diminish. His blaster stayed on her—she could feel its muzzle trained between her shoulder blades, actually feel a slight heat there like a blaster bolt was ever-so-slowly boring in. She wondered if it was the Force expanding her perception. If that were the case, _thanks a lot._

They came to a fresher, finally. She could recognize its design from the Star Destroyers she'd raided. This one had far less sand in it. His free hand coiled to deliver a shove if she slowed for an instant, he led her inside—rows upon rows of urinals, toilets, sinks. Unisex, though she got no more sympathy from the females than she did the males. And now there was a commotion, minor as it was. The various troopers seemed to take a grim amusement in seeing her being escorted to the fresher like a child.

She went through a locker room, then into a shower station. It was designed for efficiency, not for comfort. Water rained down from nozzles in the ceiling; soap and shampoo dispensers were on the walls. There was no privacy, and Rey could only reverse her earlier indictment and thank the Force that no one else was bathing at the moment.

Her captor pulled open a laundry chute on the wall. "Strip. Clothes in here. Don't try to keep anything."

Rey gave him her meanest stare and said something in Rodian that would make a bounty hunter blush.

He reached to his belt (Rey twinged, hated herself for it) and came up with a vibroblade. He showed her it functioned, blurring the edge with energy, then switched it off and returned it to its holster. Then he drew a nozzled canister from a different clip on his belt.

"Stokhli spray canister. It'll put you out of commission for hours. And it'll hurt. I'll use it, cut you out of your clothes, hose you down, and then wait for you to wake up with the worst headache of your life. That was your warning."

 _Be smart, Rey._ She was luring him into a false sense of security, being a model prisoner. She waved down the canister and, after a suspicious look that seemed to stab through her, he put it away.

She stripped.

He didn't leer. He made no comment. She didn't feel his eyes on her breasts or genitals any more than she did on her arms or legs. Mostly he watched her hands. And he seemed more concerned with her discarded clothes than her, carefully prodding each article with the toe of his boot, as if she were going to slip a datastick to a Resistance collaborator in the laundry service.

It made no difference. She felt mortified _, angry,_ wanting desperately to stop with every second that passed, to say that she could bathe just as well in her underthings as naked, to dare him to carry out his threat and damage Kylo Ren's prize. But she didn't. She'd let him dictate the terms and now she was following them. That embarrassed her even more than being seen naked. Hot tears stung her eyes and the same phlegm seemed to fill her whole body.

He started the water. She gripped a bar of soap. She kept her side turned to him, with one arm covering her breasts. He didn't try to look at anything she wasn't showing him. His eyes didn't linger—they'd have to _leave_ for that to be the case. No, they stayed fixed on her center mass, his blaster unwavering.

It was awkward washing herself with just one hand, and keeping the shreds of her modesty in mind at all time. Her first shower since the Falcon—she'd have thought it wouldn't lose its appeal so quickly. But the abundance of water couldn't penetrate the shame and humiliation she felt.

Her captor didn't even regard her as a victim. There was no sadism, no malice. That would at least be _personal,_ there would be some _reason_ there. She knew, technically, it was better than the alternative, but the very casualness of it stuck in her gullet like a pound of sand. Kylo Ren, offended by the filthy clothes she'd put back on after finishing her shower, had ordered that she be washed and now that order was being carried out. Her own feelings were not factored in. Any thought of offense, of respect, hadn't even been computed. She was being given the exact same treatment his boots would get if they became dirty.

She was almost ashamed of herself for this—it looked to be her day for shame—but she'd never really hated the First Order like she did now, because of this. Not because this offense was directed at her; at least, she hoped not. But because of the sheer callousness they'd displayed. She'd known they could be cruel, amoral, violent. She knew Kylo Ren had done terrible things, ordered terrible things done, and approved of even more. But that was at least in service of some mission, a higher cause. Like the man she had shot; the man she had killed.

This was just—business as usual. Standard operating procedure. _Maintenance._ The entire ugly, dehumanizing process was intended to do nothing else but be efficient. She was being treated this way not to break her, but simply because this was how the Order saw people. As parts to be kept clean and efficient for as long as required, repaired when possible, replaced when necessary. There was no love in it, no dignity, nothing but the utility she was judged to possess by those in power.

She finished, coming back to herself from her musings with an awareness that this fresher was actually better than the one on the Falcon. The water pressure was more consistent, the temperature was warmer, and if the soap had no scent, it still smelled better than whatever doubled as Han's cologne. Still, she'd felt a lot more clean coming out of that fresher, getting a wry grin from Finn: "Muuuch better." And an affirming roar from Chewie, Han shouting back from the cockpit for him to keep it down, he was trying to keep the hyperdrive running after what _Rey's best friend_ had done to it, and Rey saying that Unkar Plutt was not her friend, thinking that now she knew what friends were.

She couldn't smile at the memory. Just worry, again, over what had happened to her friends. Her family, even, if only by default.

Seeing she was done, her captor turned off the shower spray. Rey set the soap back in its compartment; with both hands free, she covered her groin as well as her chest. She hoped wherever her new clothing was waiting, it was close. She started moving back the way she'd came—

"Stop there," the trooper said. "Kneel."

So this was it, then. She wished she could've been surprised, but the dropping sensation in her gut had become familiar. It'd never happened to her before, but she'd heard of it happening, had acquaintances who _didn't talk about it_ in a way that made it perfectly clear what had happened. Asking for sympathy in as much amount as Jakku could deliver.

She knelt down, promising herself she would bite it off, she would, she would, he could do anything he liked after that _but she would bite it off first…_

He went to the soap compartment. Picked up the bar of soap she had used. Squeezed it in his gloved hands, breaking it into sloppy pieces, grinding them smaller and smaller—finally satisfied. He dropped his soapy hand to his side and focused on Rey once more.

"Stand up. Walk forward."

Rey let out a breath that was barbed, rasping over a raw throat as it went. He was just making sure she hadn't placed something in the soap, in the damned _soap._

There were clothes waiting for her, folded just outside the shower. An old, surplus Naval uniform from the days of the Empire. Dark gray jacket, dark gray trousers, dark gray cap, with assorted undergarments and shirt in charcoal gray. The rank pins, identity disk, and code cylinders had all been removed, leaving neat holes in the jacket. Rey could've laughed. After all this, she would still be dressed like a scavenger.

She cried instead though. The trooper took no more notice of it than he had her nudity, her fear, or her hatred.


End file.
